"No," she answers. "It is a very sad story. The poor girl was a victim."
"Yes," says the doctor, his voice sounding deep and low with suppressed feeling, "she was a victim. But she was not a victim of the handsome hussar, nor even of our kind hostess here. The cause of her ruin lies deeper, much deeper than that. As the twilight is more eerie than complete darkness, so a half education is more dangerous than absolute ignorance. Darkness and ignorance alike lay a bandage over the eyes and prevent the feet from straying beyond the threshold of the known; knowledge and light open the eyes of man and enable him to advance boldly on the path that lies before him; while half knowledge and twilight only remove part of the bandage and leave him to grope about blindly, perhaps even cause him to fall! Poor child! she was snatched away from the pure stream, and her thirst was so great that she strove to slake it in any puddles she passed on the way. Poor child! She...."
Here a yawn interrupts the speaker. The fat woman is thoroughly good and kind, but she is by no means intellectual, and hates having to listen to what she does not understand.
Meanwhile Frau Kasimira continues as follows:
"So Graf Géza soon succeeded in gaining complete influence over her. And when he left this to be stationed at Marburg, she followed him there. One Friday evening—just like to-day—when Moses came home, he found the nest empty. There was a great uproar down-stairs. They called her, sought her everywhere with tears—no words can describe the scene. My husband went down-stairs—Moses raged like a madman. It all happened five years ago, but I shall never forget that night....
"The next few days were very uncomfortable and queer. They all went on as if Esther were dead. The shop and bar were both closed; the pictures were hung with black; the mirrors were turned with their faces to the wall. A small lamp was burnt in a corner of her room for seven days and seven nights, and during the whole of that time Moses sat on the floor of the room barefoot and with his clothes torn. I don't know whether it is true, but I heard that the Jews took an empty coffin to the cemetery on the Sunday following, and then filled in an empty grave. I have been told that they even went so far as to put up a gravestone to Esther! On the eighth day Moses rose up and went quietly about his business again. These Jews are such strange creatures! Only fancy! he came to us that very day to ask for his rent. I scarcely recognized him—his hair had turned quite gray in the course of a week. His manner was quiet and composed, and he seems to have forgotten all about his daughter now. But as everybody knows, the Jews are fonder of their money than of their children!"
"Has no one heard anything more about Esther?" asks the fat woman.
"Yes—once. But what we heard wasn't much to be relied on. Little Lieutenant Szilagy—you remember what fibs he used to tell—went to spend his leave in Hungary on one occasion, and when he came back, he declared that he had seen Graf Géza and Esther in a box in the National Theatre at Pesth. But the little man tells so many lies that one never knows how much to believe. It may quite well have been some other pretty girl."
"Do you know," says Frau Emilie, the highly educated lady from Lemberg, "do you know what this story reminds me of? Of a very amusing play I once saw acted in Lemberg. It was translated from the English of a certain ... oh dear! these English names...."
"Perhaps you mean Shakespeare?" inquires the doctor, coming to the rescue.